


Echoes of Pandora

by incognitotoro



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, Post-Canon, Probably some angst, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitotoro/pseuds/incognitotoro
Summary: Fiona never could help herself, she always had to know. She was definitely the cat that curiosity killed. Well, not killed quite yet; but not for want of trying. So while she never would have predicted the journey that got her here from lugging that fake vault key through Hollow Point, she couldn’t quite bring herself to be surprised that here she was; standing in an echoey room with her hand poised over a weird glowy box thing. What was mildly surprising was the company.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My take on what happens after ep5, since no season 2 is forthcoming (sob.)   
> or  
> Fine, I don't need you telltale! I'll write my own tale! With blackjack etc....
> 
> Constructive feedback appreciated! :)

Fiona never could help herself, she always had to know. Boxes, secrets, letters, she was always the one to peek, to pry, regardless of their significance or mundanity. She was definitely the cat that curiosity killed. Well, not killed quite yet; but not for want of trying. So while she never would have predicted the journey that got her here from lugging that fake vault key through Hollow Point, she couldn’t quite bring herself to be surprised that here she was; standing in an echoey room with her hand poised over a weird glowy box thing. What was mildly surprising was the company.

If someone had told her all those months ago that the chump that they were about to con out of a glorious _ten million dollars_ would be standing next to her inside a _vault_ of all places, smiling at her like a dork, she would have laughed her ass off. And then probably attempted to con them too because anyone that stupid would be an easy mark… But here he was, waiting with her to share the big reveal, hand hovering next to hers. She’d be lying if she said she had expected it, but now they were here, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it either. Sasha had always been her partner in crime, but she had never quite shared Fiona’s hunger for secrets and reveals, preferring more down to earth rewards, like guns, cash, guns, the occasional upgrade to the caravan and of course, guns. It felt oddly right that she was outside giddily sifting through the rare loot, while Fiona and Rhys stood here together about to finally share the secret. Even though they had been with the team from the beginning, she had the somewhat confusing feeling that this was always going to end with the two of them. Sasha of course may kill her for looking without her, but what was she supposed to do? Not look? I mean, Sasha knew her well enough to know that wasn’t an option…

They exchanged a look, then together reached down and opened the chest.

There was light.

So much light that she thought she may come out of this blind, if she came out of this at all. She was only vaguely aware of a noise like scraping metal, faded into insignificance by the blinding light. She tried to cover her eyes to no avail, it seemed like the light was above such paltry things as physical barriers. Her senses were screaming, and she almost cried with relief when the light faded to a roaring glare. She realised she had become completely unaware of her body, except from the assault on her senses. She realised this when she fell face first onto the ground. There was a flash of red pain, and she passed out.

It took several minutes (hours?) before she realised she was awake. She felt like a disembodied train of thought, flashes of memory coming to her in no particular order. An enormous arch in the wasteland, a giant alien rock monster, Sasha dying on the ground, mismatched eyes sheepishly looking down at her. Sasha was floating, alive, then falling, and then it was Fiona that was falling, falling, eyes still burning from the blinding light. She became aware of the fact that she had a body, and was subsequently aware of the burning ache all down one side. She was lying in an absurdly uncomfortable position and her right arm was still deciding whether it wanted to hurt like a bitch or just be numb. She shifted her hips experimentally, managing to apparently restore some blood flow to her poor arm. With great effort, she dragged herself onto her back, muscles screaming the entire time. _Urrrgh ,_ She thought, _Moving is just the worst._

Eyes still shut – she couldn’t face opening them quite yet – she pondered her surroundings. This was definitely ground, uneven and sun warmed, she could hear and feel the whisper of a breeze tugging at her hair. Quite relaxing actually, almost enough to make her want to just rest here for a while…

Her eyelids blazed red under the sun and she groaned. Just like every morning when she was a kid, with Felix waking her and Sasha up and ungodly hours to try and establish some semblance of normal discipline. She became aware of sluggish movement next to her and before she could decide whether or not it was worth the supreme sacrifice of opening her eyes and investigating, she was rudely awoken from her reverie by what could only have been a boot in the face.

“Shit!”

“Shit!”

“Rhys!?”

“You scared the crap out of me!”

“What the shit, Rhys?!” She clutched at her nose which – goddamn it of course it was bleeding. She sat up, ignoring her body’s protests, tilting her head back and glaring at the idiot sprawled next to her, looking utterly shell-shocked. By the looks of it he had jumped at her groan, unaware of how close they were lying and _kicked her in the goddamn face_.

“Oh shit,” he had the grace to look mildly guilty before offering a meek “oops…”

“Oops is fuckigg right,” She said pinching her nose, “Lucky for you its dot goddab broken.” At least she was pretty sure it wasn’t. Awesome. Awesome start to her life as a successful vault hunter. Wait, shit, the vault!

“Wait,”

“Shit, the vault!” They looked around frantically, Fiona’s nose momentarily forgotten. Well there was certainly no sign of the giant archway they had entered by. They sat on the dusty ground in the middle of a shallow crater. There were black burn lines over it, as if they had been drawn on with charcoal. She glanced around, they looked vaguely familiar. Rhys followed suit.

“Is that-”

“It’s a vault symbol,” she said dreamily. “Okay, well it obviously did something, although I don’t see any loot around here which is… unsettling.”

“I uh, I actually don’t really see anything around,” he said, squinting around, “I mean, it’s ridiculously bright but I can’t see much from this crater. There was just – light? So much light. You remember anything else?”

“Light, falling?” she shrugged and dabbed at her nose which blissfully had mostly stopped bleeding, “Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting quite such a violent awakening.”

“Oh come on, Fiona, you know it was an accident! I hadn’t even opened my eyes!”

“Gee that makes my nose feel so much better,” she muttered grumpily “But seriously we should think about finding some shelter or something, I think my head may explode if I don’t get out this damn sun soon. Any idea where we are?”

She watched as his ECHO eye lit up. He frowned slightly and brought up his palm display, frown deepening.

“What?” He just kept frowning at his palm. “Oh come on, what is it?” she said, shuffling around so she could see the display. She leaned over to see, shoulder pressed up against his, which made him jump.

“Jeez Fiona,”

“What? You passed out for a second there or something? I was literally right in front of you.”

“Whatever,” he said sulkily, “It’s weird, nothing’s connected,”

“Lemme see,” she said, leaning over and yanking his metal arm towards her. The display was flickering unhealthily, showing an error message about not being connected to the ECHOnet. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” He looked so endearingly concerned she couldn’t help but grin. “What?” He demanded.

“Nothing,” she schooled her face into a neutral expression, “Really, nothing.”

“What so- so I’m the dork? For being disturbed by being disconnected to the ECHOnet? I’ve literally never been disconnected like this since I got this thing, not en-route through deep space to Helios, not on Pandora, the ass-crack of the universe…” He tailed off when she couldn’t help smirking again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You’re just all concerned and frowney, it’s adora-.” She slammed her mouth shut. _What. I did not just nearly call this idiot adorable._ If nothing else it was _really_ not the time for this right now… _What is wrong with me today?_

She pouted absurdly to attempt to tease him into forgetting what she just said. Almost said. She breathed an internal sigh of relief when he cocked an eyebrow at her but otherwise didn’t comment. She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration and winced slightly at the pain. She knew her own brain well enough to know that she was going to overanalyse the _crap_ out of this later.

“Whatever, can we just, I don’t know, talk and walk or something? Because this headache is kicking my ass. So, pick a direction oh mighty human shaped GPS.”

“The point is,” he said, infuriatingly slowly as if he was trying to explain the ECHOnet to his great grandma, “that if it was broken, faulty connection or whatever , I wouldn’t be able to see out of it at all. It’s out of range I think, It’s never happened to me before-”

“I’ve heard _that_ before…”

“Har Har. Well I don’t have any GPS either, I think there’s some damn thing in the atmosphere here that is messing with it.” She was starting to get a bad feeling about this…

“So…”

“So, the vault monster could teleport, and that,” he gestured vaguely into the air “was the vault of the _traveller_ … Fiona, you don’t think-”

“No, I mean…” she looked around desperately. I mean sure, the dirt certainly had a different feel to it, and now she thought of it the air tasted faintly metallic and the sky was ever so slightly yellow, but no… That wasn’t so very different from some of the more polluted parts of Pandora. No way… She started fiddling with her hair and realised with disproportionate horror that her hat was missing.

She stood up abruptly, startling Rhys and causing her head to split open like an overripe drakefruit, at least it felt like it. She spun around like a weirdo until she saw it just at the edge of the crater bank, the wind must have caught it while she was passed out. Phew. Every muscle in her body protested as she walked over to get it, but she felt whole again when she picked it up, dusted it off and put it on.

“Jeez, I really thought you may have lost it there,” Rhys said from behind her. “Like, I really thought for a second that you were… you were totally freaking out about how we’re, we’re…” She turned around as he tailed off and gave him a look.

“I mean,” He chuckled nervously, “I’m not freaking out… I was just, you know, worried that you were freaking out…”

“Uhuh.”

“YYyuuuppp…”

“So, you were just worried that I might be freaking out because we’ve probably been teleported across the galaxy, or even across the universe to some random planet and we’re probably never going to see anyone again and we’d be supremely lucky to even get off this rock?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” He said weakly, looking a little sick.

“Ok good.” She took a deep breath and shut her eyes for a few seconds.

“Good. Peachy.”

“OK so now we’ve established that neither of us is freaking out-”

“Nope.”

“Nope. So now we’ve established that… I guess, pick a direction?”

He looked around blankly. In fairness there really wasn’t anything in any direction to make the choice easier, given they were literally sitting in a crater.

“That way.” He said, pointing.

“Don’t be stupid,” She huffed, feigning exasperation and punching him lightly on the arm. “This was the way my hat was, clearly the superior direction.” He rolled his eyes but look a little relieved that he didn’t have to make the decision.

“Fine, good. Lead the way then, oh superior navigator.”

“Cheer up, it’ll be fine!” He did not look convinced. She shrugged. “Well look at it this way, from the ass-crack of the galaxy, the only way is up.” That earned a reluctant smile. “At least I hope so…” She muttered under her breath.

“I heard that, you know,”

She stuck her tongue out at him. They exchanged weary smiles and set off up the bank of the crater.

As it turned out, the crater was rather steeper than it appeared, and within a few minutes Fiona was sweating profusely in the unforgiving sun and inwardly cursing her many-layered outfit. By the time she finally crested the lip of the crater, she was sweaty and dishevelled and entirely not in the mood for any more surprises, so when she finally took in the full landscape around her, she found herself in the rare state of speechlessness.

For as far as she could see there was tall, glossy grass the colour of lavender, there were rolling purple hills on the horizon which shimmered as the wind caught the swaying grass, punctuated occasionally by jutting grey rocks. There was no sign of civilisation whatsoever. Behind her, Rhys stopped mid-whine as he cleared the crater to join her in staring open mouthed at the alien landscape.

“Well… Shit.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Shit.” Repeated Fiona, after staring at the landscape for another few minutes.

“Yup…”

“We’re not on Pandora anymore are we?”

“Nope…”

Fiona shielded her eyes against the harsh sunlight and stared into the sky, still half hoping to spot Elpis up there, hanging where it always had, but there was nothing but a yellowish haze. She felt panic rising in her chest.

“Well, looks like you finally managed to get off-world.” Said Rhys quietly, and in his defence he probably only meant to make her feel better, but unfortunately it was exactly the wrong thing to say at that moment. Fiona rounded on him angrily.

“ _This_ is not what I had in mind, Rhys!” She gestured around them wildly, unable to keep the edge of panic from her voice. “When I said I wanted to get off Pandora I meant in a shuttle! Going somewhere I knew! Or at least somewhere slightly populated! With Sasha! Oh god, Sasha,” Rhys had flinched away from her when she started gesticulating, but now he grabbed her shoulders, making her jump slightly.

“Fiona- Fi,” The nickname sobered her a little, and she managed to meet his eyes. “Don’t freak out.” She choked out a laugh.

“Gee, thanks. Real helpful.” He smiled warmly.

“Got a comeback for everything right?” She nodded and took a deep breath. “Besides, if you freak out then you’ll have to rely on _me_ for basic survival.”

“We wouldn’t last the night,” she said, smiling up at him weakly. His hands were still resting on her shoulders and Fiona suddenly became aware that they were just a little too close. He abruptly moved his hand towards her face and for once mad moment she thought he was going to kiss her, she jerked back automatically.

“You’ve, uh” He stammered as he withdrew his hands and pointed to his nose, “You’ve got some, uh, blood…”

“Shit…” her hand flew to her nose and she mentally shoved away a sense of vague disappointment which she really didn’t have the mental space to analyse right now. Then she felt herself start to blush for some reason, which in itself was more embarrassing that whatever she was blushing _about._

“Ugh, thanks again for that by the way.” She said grumpily, while pinching her nose and tilting her head back, holding onto her hat with her other hand. She wiped her nose unceremoniously with the back of her hand, which thankfully came back clean, and exhaled heavily.

“So, that way?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Try and make it to one of those big rocks. Shelter and food and water. I don’t suppose you have any food or water on you?”

“What? No, it’d ruin the lines of the suit!” _Aaand there’s the pampered little prince_ , she thought, but was too tired to articulate it so she just sighed and nodded resignedly.

“Of course.” She turned and started walking. After a few seconds she heard him follow, muttering under his breath about how she obviously didn’t have any either, unless she was hiding a diner in her hat.

In lieu of any kind of path, Fiona parted the purple grass with her hands and stomped it down, feeling like she was somehow defacing the planet. She grinned at the idea that already she was a criminal in this place. To her annoyance she found that she was less than a head shorter than the grass, which severely limited her ability to navigate, and within ten minutes of struggling she was ready to sit right down on the floor and throw a tantrum. Apparently this was obvious because Rhys piped up after another few minutes.

“Look, much as I enjoy watching someone _else_ flail around ineffectually, I feel like actually being able to see over the top makes me a better front man right now.”

“Lucky for you I’m too exhausted to make fun of you. Go right ahead.”

“Make fun of me for what?” he scoffed as he pushed past her to take the lead, “actually being able to help?”

“Shut up you- you tall person. Shut up.”

“Unbelievable…” he muttered.

They made decent progress after that, Rhys clearing a path with infuriating ease with Fiona trudging along behind him and missing her rickety old caravan more than she ever thought possible. Especially with her vision being almost entirely taken up with the odd purple grass, which she was fast learning to hate. She felt exhausted to her very bones and her whole side still ached from falling, so it was an immense relief when Rhys finally shouted that they had made it to one of the rocks. She looked up after at least half an hour of staring at her feet and willing them to move, and was surprised to see the massive boulder towering over them.

“Whoa, it’s bigger than it looked.”

“Bet you say that to all the guys,”

“Shut up.” She smacked him lightly on the shoulder, but couldn’t help smiling widely at the sheer relief of finally finding some sort of landmark. “Let’s go!”

With renewed curiosity, she set off through the remaining grass between them and the rock. There was a clear grass-free radius around the boulder and the dirt was strewn with pebbles, but the boulder itself was craggy and rough, odd greyish lichen growing in patches. She ran her hand over it as she walked around, estimating the rock to be about 8 metres across, most useful however, was her discovery of a large alcove at ground level which would make perfect shelter.

There was plenty left to do before they could properly rest, but for now, she was utterly ecstatic just to have a few minutes off her feet and out of the sun. She dropped down, sitting on the dusty ground and sighing with relief.

“Ugh.” The relief quickly melted away and she was left with cold irritation. Somehow without the headache and the foot-ache and the constant, punishing sunlight, all she was left with was exhaustion and a creeping feeling of despair. She inhaled deeply, trying unsuccessfully to banish the emotion that was welling up inside her. 

_Stuck here, where even is here? Just had to open the thingy, didn’t you? Just had to find out and now- now…._

“Now what?” asked Rhys.

“Now,” She managed, and was embarrassed that her voice cracked. She took a deep breath and shakily sat up. “Now we uh, we climb this rock, get an idea of the land. Then figure out water and maybe fire and food?”

He nodded silently and held out his hand. She took it gratefully, got up and started the climb.


	3. Chapter 3

The climb wasn’t so far, but it was extremely steep, and by the time they reached the top there had been a few near falls. Fiona anchored herself on a relatively sturdy looking crag, ignoring Rhys’s whining a few feet down, and took in the view.   
The rippling ocean of grass extended almost to the horizon, where there was a grey haze that she assumed was a lake or sea or some kind of body of water. The sun was getting lower in the sky, even though it had only been a few hours since they had fallen. Better keep an eye on that, she thought, last thing we want is to get lost in the dark… Though panic still lurked in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but take a moment just to stare. The alien landscape really was breathtakingly beautiful. It reminded her slightly of the abandoned Atlas facility back on Pandora, but with less of the creepy sense of foreboding and danger. No, this place felt …well, calm.   
As soon as she thought that she regretted tempting fate like that. How many times in her life had a feeling of calm not been followed by utter chaos? None. And it was always that particular Pandoran brand of chaos, so full of bullets, explosions, slag and usually betrayal that she had to wonder whether the planet had some sort of unique chaos field or something which made it somehow more likely that some crazy shit would happen.  
“Wow,” came Rhys’ voice, jerking her out of her reverie.  
“It’s actually pretty beautiful, huh?”   
“We’re like, really high up…” He sounded vaguely nauseous.  
“Oh just go back down you big wuss. I’ll be right there.” He nodded weakly, looking like the only thing he wanted to do less than make the climb back down was to stay all the way up here. She rolled her eyes as he started back down and turned back to the horizon. Beautiful or not, this planet was going to be a bitch. She had no idea what they were going to eat or drink, and if it was uninhabited as it seemed, she truly had no idea how they were going to get back home.   
“Shit.” She murmured. “God, Sash, what have I got myself into?” She stood like that for a long time, clinging to the rock and gazing off into the hazy horizon, willing it to be more familiar.   
When she finally clambered down it was later than she would have liked. The sun had slid even further down the odd, beige sky and she guessed they would have only a few hours before it was dusk . She found Rhys sitting cross legged in the alcove she found earlier, he had shed his suit jacket and rolled up his remaining shirt sleeve and was currently utterly absorbed in tinkering with his cybernetic arm . 

“Hey,” she managed, making him jump slightly.   
“Hey, so, I’ve got some good news,”  
“You found another magic doorway that’ll take us off this rock and back home?”  
“Uh, no. But I have been tweaking the programming in my cybernetics for the last hour or so and I’ve managed to find a basic backup of part of the ECHOnet database that I can patch into my ECHOeye!”  
Fiona looked blank, mostly intentionally.  
“And this means…?” He rolled his eyes at her, not quite managing to look exasperated. He was clearly too excited about his tinkering.   
“OK come on, it’s not that complicated-”  
“Rhys, I am in no mood.”  
“OK fine, I’ve managed to get my ECHOeye working –in a very limited capacity at least- which means-”  
“Which means you can scan stuff?” volunteered Fiona cautiously.  
“Yes!”  
“Well bully for you,”  
“Fiona, this means I can scan things like plants and water, you know, so we don’t die?”   
“That- that does sound useful…” she admitted reluctantly. Ugh, relying on Rhys for survival information? What next? This thought added to her general feeling of being hopelessly out of her depth. Except, not like all the other times she was hopelessly out of her depth. At least all those other times she was pretty much on her home turf. Even up on Helios amongst those Hyperion jerkbags, there had been the semblance of familiarity. She shook the creeping terror from her mind again and tried to focus on the task at hand.  
“All right, we need fire; something that’ll burn, both kindling and longer term fuel. We need clean, non-toxic water, as well as some kind of food.” She ticked them off on her fingers as Rhys nodded attentively. “I guess this alcove will do for shelter for the time being, I doubt we’ll have time for much more before nightfall…” Rhys was still nodding, looking at her with a shadow of the old helplessness he had shown all those months ago when he first found himself stranded on Pandora with nothing but a few dirty, no-good hustlers for support. It seemed an impossible amount of time since then.   
“Well I can tell you right now that this grass will make fine kindling,” said Rhys, turning his glowing eye on the swaying purple landscape. “and it looks like it has pretty thick roots, we could see if they’ll burn longer? What?” She had been staring at him, starting to smirk. She shrugged amusedly.  
“Nothing, just, look at you! Rhys the survivalist.” His lip quirked up and he shrugged back.  
“Well I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, still smiling, “but I like to think I’m at least slightly less clueless than I was.”   
“I mean, maybe slightly.” She said playfully, and with a shock realised that this was as close to familiarity as she was going to get. Teasing Rhys and their quick exchange just now had been the first time she had really felt like herself since they had got to this damn planet. Eager as she was to avoid reading too much into this fact, she couldn’t help but feel a little raw all of a sudden.   
Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Rhys continued fiddling with the UI in his palm, a small smile still playing on his mouth.   
“I- Rhys?”   
“Yeah?”  
“I’m glad you’re- I’m glad I’m not alone here.” Fiona rushed, immediately regretting her words and feeling herself flush. Honestly, what was wrong with her? When did she get so soppy? Then, to her mingled relief and horror, he flushed too, looking down quickly, still with that small smile on his lips.   
“Me too, Fi.”   
There was a clear ten seconds of hideously awkward silence, in which Rhys busied himself with his palm UI and Fiona picked at the nearby grass, before they both remembered the matter of their not freezing to death in the night.   
“So grass and roots?”  
“Yup, I’ll keep scanning for water.”  
“Yup.”


End file.
